The Last Thing I Saw Before the Sacrifice in the Woods

While I was wrapping Christmas presents a little bit ago, I was listening to Sonic Youth and was reminded of college when I listened to Sonic Youth on repeat, any and all albums, while I wrote papers. (In grad school Sonic Youth became Erasure (for the one final paper at least).) Does this mean that in my post-school life wrapping presents has taken the place of using my brain to write papers? How domestic and dull. I hope not.

I had a Young Goodman Brown experience at work today, post-work holiday party. Near the end of the party a girl who was wearing black hoochie pants came from the table to our right and sat at our table. At our table was the crew from the sleep lab, Mark and I, and the head of the Neuroscience department.

I had said to Mark earlier in the evening that almost all the people at the table at the right always wear scrubs to work and looked weird in "real" clothes. Today I saw the girl who was wearing the hoochie pants, today in her scrubs again and easy pony-tail, no make-up. We shared a look of recognition that said something like I remember you from outside of here, drinking wine, dressed for the red night. Like when Young Goodman Brown saw all of the "devout" acting as normal after his night witnessing their revelry, perverse and shocking to him, deep in the woods. Scrubs, pink ribbon. Those whores and their holiday cheer.

It wasn't like things got all that debaucherous, or debaucherous at all really, at the holiday party, though people acted more loosely, and in their night clothes and makeup transformed into probably who they are most of the time outside the workplace. I wonder what my scrubs-personality would be.

Which reminds me, while I was in college, Rodney Jones told me to dress like a dominatrix when I went to take the GRE so that I would feel like a different person and feel less anxiety. Then he offered me a black banana from his desk. This poet, this man, this cigarette-smoking sage, rocks.